Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Health - Dropping the Diet Coke!

I feel good lately. By coincidence, when I’m feeling good, I develop an urge to be healthy.Is it a coincidence? Probably not. I’m afraid to delve into the depths of that association, but I’m sure there’s a negative connotation there to the days I’m feeling bad & not wanting to be healthy …. Lol.

Anyway. I’ve been performing some self analysis on myself lately and I’ve been thinking back to the way I’ve been on diets all my life, only to fail and gain back all the pounds I lost… The ones of us who have been there, know that failing a diet makes it a lot harder to even try another diet plan again, and if you do, you expect to fail. It’s sad that we’re starting something new without enough confidence to think that we’ll be victorious.

So I’m thinking to myself that all I really want, is to be healthy. I don’t want to go on a diet that’s eventually going to end, leaving me to fend for myself in a non-diet world that’s just bulging with temptations on every corner. I want to be healthy, let’s say 90% of the time. That leaves 10% of unhealthy time, a time where I can indulge in cookies and cheetos if I so wish. (And I know myself well enough to know … that I WILL wish to indulge in cookies and cheetos from time to time….)

I’ve also come to the conclusion that it’s hopeless to drop ALL of your bad habits at once. When I do that, my body goes into shock and complete chaos… all kinds of cravings start bombarding me from every direction. It’s hard enough dealing with one type of craving, but if multiple hits you at once, that’s a recipe for failure. I can stand strong for a little while but then I’ll cave in to one, or all, of the cravings eventually.

So…I’m going to start out by dropping Diet Coke from my diet. Although it has no sugar, I know that there are some side effects associated with diet coke, besides the obvious side effect that is a heavy addiction! Insulin resistance is one of the side effects, which is in fact associated with PCOS, an infertility condition that I was diagnosed with last year.

I need to find other sources of drinks to replace my Diet Coke habit. For dinner and lunch, I don’t always want water with my meal. I have found that seltzer water is a very good substitute for Diet Coke because it has the bubbles & is a bit more exciting than just plain water, but it’s still water, so it’s good for me.During the day, I have started drinking tea. I do like a bit of caffeine during the day. I don’t drink coffee and I don’t need much caffeine, but I find that tea was a good substitution for the Diet Coke during work hours. I try to focus on healthy types of tea, such as green tea and white tea, but I like a variety so I’ve also got some chai tea in my desk. I don’t use any sugar in it, just a drop of milk.

As of today, I have not had a Diet Coke since Monday 3/23. I want to go 1 month without Diet Coke before I drop something else from my diet. If I’m doing good in two weeks and feeling brave, I may up my game and drop something else from my diet, but we’ll see. The weekends are the roughest ones. If I can make it through a weekend without diet coke, then that’s a big victory.

5 comments:

i just can't stop reading these lines over and over "I’ve also come to the conclusion that it’s hopeless to drop ALL of your bad habits at once." lol! I wish i could drop any of my bad habits, but you do have a point here, start from somewhere and hopefully progress to a better place! nice one!

You've so right girl! There are onlye one solution for diets, and that is that you put on weight. And every time your dietting are failing, you loose a bit of your self-esteem.

Remember when we where kids? Only sweets on Saturday evening? Oh yes, and there where always a bit of chocolate or a bonbon in grandma's cupboard. ;)

So, I do not think it's smart to turn your habits up side down imidiately. It has to come bit by bit, and of your free will.

Deciding to try live healthy is a good start, and it also might be smart to put up a few rules as you can live with in the long run. The worst thing we can do is to deny ourself treats, but it can also be smart to change out some of the food-treats with an item or a trip or the like.

A specialist told me once, that it was more important to understand why we eat before we can do something about it.

Great decision to quit the soda pop! I too had to really plan and set goals. I finally got off the stuff by using soda water and Diet Kola Capsules... it's the almost the same stuff in the soda, but in a pill. See http://www.dietkola.com for info.Judit

I haven't tried this, but how about unsweetened iced tea WITH seltzer water? I also really recommend Skinny Cow ice cream. They are sooo yummy, and have limited calories (around 100 for each). And they are not skimpy sized either! A great way to indulge and not feel guilty!